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Posts Tagged ‘Civil Liberties’

This Monday’s Metro Vancouver featured a report on an anti-Olympic mural that has been repainted outside a Downtown Eastside art gallery.

SEAN KOLENKO/FOR METRO VANCOUVER

The original removal of this mural in November has been cited by civil rights activists as proof that freedom of expression will be curtailed during the games; City Councillor Greoff Meggs maintains the removal was a mistake made in good faith that is not “representative of  how we want to protect civil rights during the Games. And we’ve been adamant that we do.”

David Eby, the executive director for the BC Civil Liberties Association expressed hopes that the city would treat anti-Olympic messages the same as pro-Olympic ones. If Counc. Meggs assertions at the recent public forum on security and civil rights during the games prove to be true then this should be the case. I have previously said that these games should be judged on their actual implementation, not by supposition on possibilities. The November removal of the mural, or this article in the Globe and Mail certainly left the city and VANOC looking like their claims that freedom of expression would not be curtailed look questionable. Should this mural remain up going forward, it will provide some needed credibility to Counc. Meggs claims.

My own mural would look a little more like this:

however that’s just me. The artist’s point is well taken and most certainly should not be removed from view. Metro’s article points out this space has been used for display since 2003 without incident. Hopefully the temporary removal was just that, temporary.

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Thursday evening saw a divided panel come together for a public forum on security and civil liberties during the 2010 Olympics at the SFU Harbour Centre.  The forum was organized by the Impact on Communities Coalition and consisted of Integrated Security Unit chief Bud Mercer, Vancouver Police Department deputy chief Steve Sweeney, BC Civil Liberties Association director David Eby, Vancouver City Councilor Geoff Meegs, Pivot Legal Society attorney Laura Track, Vancouver Organizing Committee director of corporate rights and management Bill Cooper and anti-Olympics activist Alissa Westergard-Thorpe.  There was another panelist speaking from an anti-Olympics stance, but this writer did not catch her name and has not been able to find a complete speakers list online.  My apologies to her.  The forum was moderated by IOCC director Am Johal.

The panel was clearly separated into two camps: organizing and security personnel on one side and those against the Olympics due to concerns about civil liberties infringements, both against those exercising political protest and the homeless on the other.

Civil rights advocates first highlighted the history of the IOC’s desire to present a ‘clean’ image of the games and the lack of communication from VANOC to the IOC that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the law of the land and must inevitably hold sway over efforts at image and brand control.  They further argued that the passing of the city’s 2010 Olympic and Paralympic bylaw, providing officials with the power to remove messaging throughout the city, along with the more recent provincial passage of the Assistance to Shelter Act not only flout the Charter rights but fly directly in the face of the bid committee’s Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement.

Panelists representing different organizational facets of the games highlighted upcoming changes to the city’s Olympic bylaw they say clarify their position that actions will only be taken against commercial messaging, not political messages.  Additionally they indicated these upcoming changes will limit the scope of both the time frame for these changes in enforcement as well as the physical areas that constitute Olympic Venues where enforcement will take place.  Outside of the venues, protest would be handled “business as usual” according to deputy chief Sweeney.  Aside from these messages, Mr. Mercer and Mr. Sweeney both underlined that they are in charge of difficult exercises in logistics.  The audience was not particularly sympathetic to this point.

Should organizers insistence that only commercial messaging will be targeted for removal prove to hold true then I will be satisfied that rights to speech are being protected sufficiently.  Nonetheless the fact that it has taken this long to present clarifying language from the city on the original bylaw that was so clearly an infringement on free speech liberties is disturbing.  Smarter minds than myself have not been mollified as easily.  Chris Shaw, a UBC professor who brought forward a lawsuit in response to the cities bylaw describes the proposed changes as “more superficial than substantive” and has indicated his suit “won’t end until the civil liberties playing field for all of us gets a lot more level.”

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